Puppy Love
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: Pam gets a puppy.


**Title: **Puppy Love  
**Author: **Cassandra Mulder  
**Rating: **G  
**Classification: **_The Office_; Jim/Pam; fluff  
**Spoilers: **Not really.  
**Disclaimer: **So not mine, about which I am extremely sad. No infringement is intended.  
**Written: **May 4 - 6, 2007  
**Word Count: **1955  
**For: **Hetfic Summer Prompt-a-Thon  
**Prompt/Summary: **Pam gets a puppy.  
**A/N: **I apologize in advance for the corny title. I'm rather surprised I picked a prompt and got it done so quickly, but that's the mode I'm in of late. So I hope the fine patron of LJ that requested this enjoys it. :) It's just a bit of cutesy fluff, but Jim and Pam could use that in their lives right now.

* * *

"You did not seriously get a dog."

"I got a puppy, Jim. There's a difference." Pam rolled her eyes at him as he stood at her desk, stealing jellybeans. It was almost like old times.

"So right now there's an animal chewing up your apartment, and peeing everywhere."

"He's in the kitchen with a baby gate across the entrance, and I've got newspaper everywhere." She sighed. "Okay, maybe it wasn't such a good…"

"No," Jim frowned, not wanting to discourage her. "No, it was a good idea. Apartments get lonely. It'll be fun having a pet."

"He's the one that's going to be lonely while I'm here all day, and at school a couple nights a week," she said, but she felt better at his reassurance.

Jim smiled. "So, he's a he. What kind of dog is he?"

She bit her lip. "A beagle." She grimaced, waiting for his reaction. "Kind of expensive, but I always wanted one…"

"It's respectable," he said, only a hint of teasing in his voice. "Not exactly a guard dog, but Snoopy was a most excellent dog. Very smart." He grinned.

She grinned back in spite of herself.

"You didn't name him Snoopy, did you?" he asked suspiciously. He had missed teasing her, and now he did it whenever possible.

She laughed. "No. I haven't named him at all. I just picked him up yesterday. My mom knew I'd been thinking about getting a pet. She knows someone who had a litter and was willing to sell them for a little lower than normal, so I spent the weekend at my parents' and brought him back last night. He's so cute. He'll play for awhile, and then he just wants to flop down beside you and cuddle up. It didn't take very long for me to fall in love."

He almost choked on a jellybean, even though the words had nothing to do with… anything. Some spots were still ridiculously sore, and he was on the verge of paranoid since mending his relationship with her.

Pam blinked up at him, inwardly cringing at the phrase. It should have been a good sign that she didn't even think before she said it, since her brain filter had learned to hold back things relating to love around him for so long. But mostly it was just awkward. "You okay?" she asked.

"Fine," he said. "So, when do I get to meet the little guy?"

She smiled, surprised. "Really? You want to come over and see him?"

"Sure. It's been forever since I had a dog. The last one I had, I had to leave at home when I went to college, and he died not long after that."

"Oh," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

Jim shrugged. "Thanks. He was a good dog." He stopped picking out jellybeans and leaned on her desk with his forearms. "So, is tonight good?"

"Are you this desperate for plans?" she teased.

_Single people usually are_, he thought, but he didn't say it out loud. "Nah, but baby animals beat _Survivor_ any day. I hate that show."

"One of the few reality shows you will rebuff," she said with a laugh.

"Don't use fancy words on me, Beesly. It won't get you out of letting me come over."

She sighed in mock exasperation. "Okay, fine. How about eight? I have a class tonight, but it's just sketch and the professor gives ridiculously short lessons."

"Sounds good." He tried not to look overly excited. He and Karen had been over for several weeks, and he and Pam had been trying to work on their friendship a few weeks before that, so this was so close to the start of starting over with her, he didn't quite know how to behave.

She nodded.

He tapped two fingers on the counter, and looked over his shoulder. "I better get back to work. I'm setting a terrible example for the others."

She laughed at his sarcastic tone and the face that scrunched up in a perfect 'yeah, right, who cares?' grimace. She was eternally relieved that he hadn't grown up nearly as much as she feared he had. What would be the fun in that?

Pam was home by seven-thirty from her six o'clock class, which gave her just enough time to throw on a pair of jeans and put her hair in a ponytail before she tidied up here and there in her nearly pristine apartment. She didn't know what she was fussing over, it was only Jim, not the Queen of England. He had his own place now, she could only imagine what kind of mess it must be.

Or not. She couldn't really say what kind of housekeeper he would be, because the only time she had ever seen his house, he had probably cleaned for his party. It was weird to think she knew him so well when she really didn't know everything at all.

She went to the kitchen to put out the food for the dog she was still calling Puppy, and there was a knock on the door.

A look through the peephole revealed Jim, and she swung the door open. "Hey," she said.

"Hey. I, uh, didn't know if you'd had dinner, so I picked up some Chinese on the way." If he sounded as nervous as he felt, he figured he would have to turn around, walk out, and find a bridge off of which to jump. She was just Pam, and he was feeling ridiculous.

"Oh, thanks. I hadn't had time to eat yet. Come in," she said.

He stepped inside, and she immediately noticed that it was like he swallowed up her living room. She skirted around in front of him, and took the bags from his hands since there was no coat to take in summer. She needed some sort of distraction so she wouldn't notice how small the room suddenly seemed.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and followed her when she cocked her head to indicate the kitchen. He watched as she carefully stepped over the baby gate, and he did the same, but with a great deal more ease.

"Wait until you smack into this in the middle of the night," he said, watching as she pulled the boxes of food from the two bags.

"Too late," she said, looking up from her task.

He groaned. "Oh, man."

"Yeah, right in the shin. It's just a little bruise, no big deal."

"Things will take getting used to."

"Yeah. Chopsticks or forks?" she asked.

"Forks. I'm starving, so I'd like to get the food to my mouth in the quickest way possible."

She laughed and started rifling through her silverware drawer. "Forks it is."

"So where's the mystery dog?" he asked.

"Conked out in his bed in the corner," she said, pointing.

"Well, he doesn't snore. I wouldn't have known he was there."

"He greeted me when I got home, but he probably wore himself out today trying to figure out why he was here all alone. I was just about to feed him when you knocked."

She walked over to the corner and scratched the puppy behind his ears, rousing him. "Hey, little guy. Wanna come make a new friend?" she said in the voice women reserved only for babies of all species.

Jim thought it was the cutest thing ever. He kneeled down on the floor, gently clapping his hands together.

The puppy scurried up from his bed and nearly slid across the floor in his rush to get to the new human. Jim laughed. "You can't prod them out of bed with your baby voice," he teased.

Pam rolled her eyes. "Like you're the expert."

"I watch _The Dog Whisperer_," he said, even though he really didn't. At least, not on a regular basis. He turned his attention back to the puppy who was scrambling to find his footing on the linoleum as he tried to jump on Jim's knee and crawl into his lap. Finally he just picked him up and stood. "He's cute. But he still needs a name."

"I know. Maybe you can help me out with that. We should probably eat while we think, though."

"All right," he said, setting the dog down and going to wash his hands at the kitchen sink.

Pam set everything out on her small kitchen table and wondered what on earth they would talk about outside of the office at this juncture. Everything was better, but better wasn't perfect. Having him in her personal space was just throwing her off more than usual.

He managed to fit his tall frame into one of her chairs and his long legs under her table, but it was a nerve wracking balancing act not to lift the table from the floor or hit her legs underneath it (so basically no shifting his legs at all).

It was going better than he expected. They talked about animals, what could top the last prank they played on Dwight, and if he had heard from Karen since she moved away. He thought that would be more awkward, but when he replied that he hadn't and she gave a shrug, they could both breathe again. They had breached the subject of someone that had been between them and the world hadn't imploded.

Even small progress was progress.

When they were done, Pam tossed the forks in the sink, and the empty cartons in the garbage. By the time she was done, Jim was sitting on the floor, her puppy bouncing happily around him.

"Definitely not a guard dog," he said.

"That's all right. I want him to be sweet, not bite my hand off. I've done just fine without a guard dog so far."

"Not really. You used to have Roy," he said with a smirk that dared her to deny it.

She just rolled her eyes. "You think you're so funny."

"You usually think so, too. That's my charm."

"Shut up," she said playfully, glad to shift her attention to the dog when he jumped up on her knee. "He needs a name, and I'm thinking about going with Snoopy just to spite you. I loved Peanuts growing up."

"But Snoopy was Charlie Brown's dog, and you know how he was treated. Do you really want rocks when you go trick-or-treating? Pining after the little red haired girl was probably no fun either."

"You're weird."

"Thanks."

It was good to see him smile at her that way with no hesitation. "Maybe I should name him Jim. Then you'd never know if I was talking about you or the dog," she teased.

"Or you could name him Dwight and talk about the dog at work. That would drive Dwight crazy." She made a face and he laughed.

"Like I want to think about Dwight outside of work."

"You have a point."

Pam was crouched down, opposite Jim, who was sitting on the floor. The puppy bounced around them, running in circles while they laughed and tried to pet him as he went by.

The puppy executed a well-placed lunge into the small of her back, sending her tumbling off balance from her squatting position. She fell into Jim, knocking him on his back.

"Ow," he deadpanned.

She was propped halfway on his chest, speechless. Either her balance was really bad, or she was going to have to name her newly acquired companion Hercules.

Jim wasn't a fan of hard floors, but at the moment he wasn't going to lodge a complaint. "He's going to be trouble," he said, making no move to get up.

Pam smiled down at him. "I can tell. Maybe I should name him Jim after all."

Finis


End file.
